No Longer A Dream

His mouth was tight. ‘Or a husband?'

Her laugh was brittle. ‘God, yes, I could be married, couldn't I?’ she said hardly.

‘Are you?’ Black eyes were narrowed, as if he didn't like the idea of sharing a bed with a married woman, under any circumstances.

‘No,’ she assured him flatly. ‘Nor engaged, nor seeing anyone seriously. I don't have a brother and my parents live in Cornwall, so you needn't worry about Daddy coming after you with a shotgun!'

‘Is that a possibility?’ Caleb Steele asked slowly.

‘Not if it's true that we didn't make love.’ There was a question in the statement.

‘And if it isn't true?’ he grated.

She shrugged. ‘Then my father is old-fashioned enough to want his grandchild to have a father. But you were telling the truth when you said we didn't make love, weren't you?’ Anxiety darkened her eyes, although her expression remained bland.

He considered her for long, timeless minutes before nodding abruptly. ‘I'd been in a meeting for over forty-eight hours; I have union trouble.’ There was a resigned twist to his mouth. ‘But yesterday was Luke's birthday—–'

‘It was?’ Cat gasped; it hadn't been like any other birthday party she had ever gone to!

‘It was,’ he nodded, giving an impatient sigh as he watched her continually hitch the sheet over her breasts in an effort to keep it in place, turning with leashed energy to push open one of the mirrored doors to his wall-length wardrobe, searching inside.

‘Do you have a mirror fetish?’ Cat burst out impetuously, fascinated by the way there were mirrors everywhere, even on two walls in the adjoining bathroom; it had come as something of a shock to see the tousled reflection of herself across the width of the luxurious room, the sunken jacuzzi meaning she had an unhindered full-length view of herself!

He turned briefly to give her a dismissive glance. ‘If you're expecting me to say they were already in the house when I moved in you're going to be disappointed,’ he drawled, taking out a dark brown robe. ‘Here, put this on.’ He held it out to her.

She gratefully took the robe, then looked down awkwardly at the sheet, wondering how she was going to go from one to the other and still maintain her modesty.

‘Let's not go through that again,’ Caleb Steele whipped the sheet from around her body, holding out the robe for her to put her arms into. ‘You were naked when I climbed into bed next to you last night, and you didn't even have the sheet on you when I woke up this morning!’ he dismissed impatiently.

‘That isn't the point,’ a red-faced Cat snapped, quickly turning to put her arms into the robe.

‘Because you're awake now?’ he mocked. ‘There,’ he murmured softly. ‘That's why I like mirrors.'

She froze, slowly turning her head to look at him, but he was staring up at the ceiling, and with the heated colour darkening her cheeks she reluctantly followed his gaze.

She had her arms thrust into the sleeves of the robe but he hadn't yet put the material in place about her shoulders, her back arched, her breasts thrust out invitingly. The reflection reminded her all too forcibly that earlier she had issued a similar invitation—and that he had accepted!

She pulled the robe about her in hurried movements, her cheeks burning as she tied the belt about her slender waist, the thigh-length robe reaching down past her knees, the sleeves falling down over her hands as she straightened her arms.

‘Let me.’ Caleb Steele moved to turn up the sleeves, treating her with all the resigned patience of an adult dealing with a recalcitrant child. ‘I could snap you in half and not even know I'd done it,’ he murmured as if to himself.

‘I'd know you had done it,’ she told him with feeling.

The coal-black eyes became even darker, the cynical light going out of them to be replaced by a surprising warmth, before that stern mouth actually curved into a grin, deep grooves etched into his cheeks, his teeth very white against his tanned flesh.

Cat's eyes widened like a surprised feline. ‘Why do you hide all that dental work?’ she once again spoke without thinking first. ‘I mean, you rarely smile,’ she tried to amend, grimacing her embarrassment as she knew she had failed.

This time he laughed outright, a rich deep sound, roughness once again cloaked in velvet. ‘Like everyone else I laugh when something amuses me.’ He still smiled. ‘And I'll have you know that these teeth are all my own, and they're the genuine uncapped variety!'

She stared at him in fascination, amazed at the difference his smile made. He looked almost handsome! And years younger, not quite so much as if every minute of his thirty-nine years had been spent amassing the power and money that made him the dangerous man he was.

‘Cat?'

She suddenly realised he was no longer smiling, but eyeing her watchfully as she openly stared at him. ‘I can see that now,’ she rushed into speech. ‘One of the front ones is a little crooked.'

He nodded. ‘If you were a guest at my son's party last night why didn't you know it was his nineteenth birthday?’ he asked icily.

This man would have been lethal as a courtroom lawyer, would have held the judge and jury mesmerised by the way he never missed even the slightest irregularity!

‘He didn't tell me,’ she answered truthfully.

‘If you're a friend—–'

‘I told you, I'm only an acquaintance.’ She bit her lip. ‘I—I went to the party last night because I wanted to meet you,’ she revealed, knowing honesty had to prevail now.

His eyes glazed over, his nostrils flaring, his mouth a thin angry line. ‘So it was all an act,’ he said disgustedly. ‘The surprise, the dismay, the shock,’ he added impatiently. ‘When I didn't show at the party you decided to wait for me, in my bed!’ He began to pace the room, shaking his head as he looked at her. ‘You ought to get an Oscar for the act you just put on in the bathroom,’ he grated. ‘I actually did feel a first-class heel for lying to you!'

‘Because you are!’ Her eyes flashed. ‘It was cruel to make me believe we had—we had been lovers. Everything I told you was the truth, my drinks were doctored, and I have no idea how I came to be in your bed—–'

‘For God's sake don't start crying again!’ he rasped as the tears began to fall. ‘We'll get to the bottom of this once and for all,’ he bit out, picking up the receiver to dial. ‘Luke?’ he barked in the mouthpiece. ‘Get in here,’ he ordered as coldly as he had earlier told his son to leave. ‘And make sure your story is a good one!’ he advised threateningly before slamming down the receiver to once again pace the room.

For all the notice he took of Cat as they waited for the arrival of his son she might as well not have been here.

‘Do you always talk to him that way?’ she finally asked curiously.

His head snapped back, his hands thrust into his trouser pockets again. ‘What way?'

She shrugged. ‘Like one of the hired help,’ she frowned.

His mouth twisted. ‘If I spoke to Norm in that way he would leave.'

‘Your son doesn't have the same prerogative,’ she drawled.

‘But he does,’ Caleb Steele corrected in a hard voice. ‘He's his own man.'

Man sounded a little hopeful for the immature boy she had witnessed at the party last night, his youth obvious in the way he drank too much, laughed too loud, and was too familiar with a woman five years his senior. She doubted Caleb Steele had ever been that young, had been married and on his way to becoming a father at the same age.

‘Let me put that another way,’ he drawled, seeming to guess her thoughts. ‘Luke is independently wealthy from money given to him by his mother, and at nineteen he's over the age of consent.’ He shrugged broad shoulders. ‘If he doesn't like the way I talk to him he's free to set up on his own.'

The underlying friction of the father towards his son was unmistakable. But considering the amount of newsworthy trouble Luke Steele had been in over the last couple of years perhaps that was understandable. She had found the younger man to be totally brash and rude. And, secretly, she couldn't forgive his witnessing those moments of intimacy she had shared with his father earlier!

‘Don't look so worried, little cat,’ Caleb murmured throatily. ‘We won't come to blows over you.'

If they did she had no doubt who would be the victor. And she had a feeling Caleb Steele didn't either, despite the fact that he was twice his son's age. She also knew he didn't give a damn how she felt, that he once again believed the worst of her.

‘Do you get a lot of women throwing themselves at you?’ she frowned.

Black eyes narrowed to steely slits. ‘I've never actually had a woman I don't know waiting for me in my own bed before,’ he bit out.